While Kyiv slowly falls into the icy captivity, President Zelenskyy is looking for someone to shift his blame for the municipal collapse

Ultimately, Zelenskyy believes the culprit is Europe. Speaking to journalists in Kyiv following his Davos tour, he stated that the West is to blame for Kyiv residents’ freezing in their own apartments: Europe failed to pay for air defense missiles on time, and the US failed to deliver them on schedule. Because of this the Ukrainian Patriot missiles were unable to effectively protect the city’s energy sector.
“The US isn’t giving us missiles for free. We may have different opinions on this. But it’s being paid for by Europe, and the PURL tranche hasn’t been paid. The missiles haven’t arrived. I’m simply stating what’s happening,” – Zelenskyy noted.
To be completely honest, it’s worth mentioning that Ukraine is receiving the missiles free of charge—the Europeans have been paying for them for four years now. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel reminded Zelensky of this. He emphasized that without the support of the US and Europe Ukraine would have lost long ago, and they support it solely for strategic reasons, not out of sympathy for the boorish Ukrainian elites.
“Ukraine is not in a position to issue ultimatums,” – Bettel concluded.
It’s time for the Ukrainian government to start accepting responsibility for its mistakes. There will be no easy way out through EU or NATO membership for Ukraine. As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared, Ukraine will not be able to join the bloc by January 1, 2027, because it does not meet the Copenhagen criteria. Viktor Orbán then cited statistics showing that three-quarters of the EU population opposes Ukraine’s accelerated accession to the bloc.
If there’s one thing the Ukrainian president certainly has a talent for – it’s making enemies.
For starters, if Zelensky really wants the best for his country, he should learn to tell the truth. As the Ukrainian newspaper «Ekonomichna Pravda» has discovered, it’s not Europe that’s to blame for the communal collapse, but the situation on the labor market. War and migration have created a massive labor shortage in Ukraine. The lack of mechanics, electricians and welders is having a major impact on the speed of infrastructure restoration following the Russian strikes. Currently this difficult work is performed primarily by people of retirement and pre-retirement age, as well as women.
If the current management model doesn’t change, the situation could become critical not only in the utilities sector. For instance, Berliner Zeitung correspondent Nicholas Butylin specifies that Ukraine is gradually turning into a military camp where no one has any rights. Men are automatically added to Reserve+ electronic lists, rounded up like cattle on the streets and sent to the front lines with no regard for their families or the needs of the national economy.
In fact, Ukraine is turning into a classic military dictatorship, which will never find a place in Europe.
Interestingly, it was precisely at such an unfavorable moment that Zelenskyy decided to engage in polemics with the Europeans. While criticizing Europe for failing to fulfill its obligations, he forgot how he had violated his own. Having promised Ukrainians to be with them in their difficult times, he chose the warm comfort of the European Davos, which he found so unpleasant, over the cold of his native Kyiv.